Toys, siblings, movies, tea parties and the value of money

Eric loves to watch Lily. He is so entertained just sitting and watching her trying his best to get his hands on her toys. He is in a Bumbo seat in this picture but he is also starting to be able to sit up on his own. He can do it for awhile but can't be trusted to sit alone because he loses focus and falls back on his head.
Lily likes to have him play with her but she gets frustrated that he doesn't play right. Notice how she has the potato heads lined up? Well, she is very particular about what goes where and Eric tends not to be able to do that. Not long after I took the picture, Lily took Eric's potato head away from him because he didn't have the right accessories on it.

But, as you can see by the shoes on the head, she isn't always that much of a stickler for normalcy.

After that cold snap ended the weather is back to being the South Florida weather that makes us put up with the high cost of living and the snowbirds' driving habits. Lily is really great at riding her bike but gets bored/tired after about half a mile.
Before Christmas I told Lily that during the holidays when there were other people in town that we would sneak off and go see the Princess and the Frog. Well, you know how hectic things get, and we never got around to it so weekend before last, we had a girls day and I took her to the movies. We had so so much fun. It was perfect. The weather was raining and freezing but since she had gotten a new raincoat for Christmas we were set. It gave me an indication that I'm raising a typical Floridian when, after walking through the parking lot and the long stretch of outdoor shops before getting inside the mall, she says to me "Mommy, my toes feel funny". The poor child had never had her toes go numb before!

We had a stack of clothes that Santa had delivered (via my dad) that didn't fit and needed to be exchanged at Gymboree so Lily got all sorts of new clothes along with her morning at the movies. I couldn't be left out and since I still had some birthday money left over, I bought myself a new sweater too.

Well, because Lily and I had a girls day, Ross invited Lily to have a tea party with him this past Saturday and there were no mommies and Erics allowed. Apparently, you must be dressed funny to attend. Unless you are a unicorn, of course.

Ross and I got Lily a Bugbsy for Christmas. It is a little computer wand thingy that reads stories when you run it accross the page. It is awesome and Lily loves it so much.

She had one book for it and wanted another. In trying to teach her about money and earning things, I made her save up her own money. I know, it may sound mean to do this to a 3.5 year old, but I was pretty generous with what I gave her money for doing and it was more an exercise in teaching her to quit asking for M&Ms every time we are in line somewhere. It was awesome to hear her say one day in line "I'm not gonna buy a treat today because I need that dollar for my bugsby book". Oh, if I didn't mention it before, I make her buy her own treats too. She has her own wallet and if she leaves it at home, no treat. (at Joann's she even uses a coupon! ... I'm so proud)
So, day before yesterday, she traded me 20 quarters out of her purse that Grandad gave her (are you kidding me? I got ONE quarter in purses I got from my grandparents!) for a $5.00 bill and yesterday I took her to Target to get her book. She makes me so proud. She had already picked out the exact one that she wanted during the last trip to the store so she lead the way through the store and right to it. She put her book up on the conveyor belt and counted out $11.00 from her wad of money. She even knew that the one with the 5 on it counts as 5! Explaining the tax to her was difficult though. In hindsight, I should have thought of that in advance and told her that the book was $11 instead of $10. She was a little confused why she had to hand over more of her money than she had planned.

I love her so much.